I sure need pond help..

Hey guys, im new here. I have just begun the journey into the wonderful
world of ponds and I have some questions about pond maintenance etc.
First of all i'll tell you my situation: I have a 160 gallon
prefabricated pond that I set into the ground. I filled it with tap
water and got my pump going on the bottom. The pond has great cover and
will never be in too much direct sunlight due to my fence and some tall
overhanging trees. My climate in southern california shoudnt pose any
risks, at least weather wise.
Ok thats all so far... now it would seem that the next step is
some rocks for the bottom, maybe river bed rocks? Then aquatic plants
and reeds, and finally fish. Thats all fine and dandy, but what now?
Should I just take some reeds from the nearby wetlands and drop them in
the pond where I want them to grow? Or is there some special plants I
should get? Also, I have a "channel" that runs around the edge of the
pond that is apparently meant for reeds to grow in.. but I have
absolutely no idea how to grow reeds! Do any of you know how? My next
big question is how do I balance my pond critters with my plants? My
understanding is that the plants are crucial to the ponds ecosystem and
especially for the fishes survival. So how many/much plants do I need?
The type of critters I am looking to put in the pond aren't the
usual koi and goldfish etc. My whole vision is to populate it with some
of the local aquatic life I find around my southern california home.
This is smallmouth bass, catfish, mosquito fish and crawdads. Now I am
very aware of my limited space i.e. 160 gallons, but I am pretty
confident that if only a very few of these critters are put into the
pond it should not be too crowded. I myself have stumbled upon secluded
pools no bigger than my living room in my local mountains while fishing
only to find bass, sometime over 2 or 3 lbs living in them! Anyway, do
you think I should transplant these fish while they are young and
small? And what about the crawdads... would they even stand a chance in
there? I have seen them living in some pretty low creeks before,
something like a few inches of water. But I just dont know if a small
pond would allow them to roam enough, can crawdads live in small ponds?
Also what about the chemicals in the tap water? I read a few things
talking about getting rid of them, whats the best way to do this?
Thats a lot of pond questions, but remember I have a blank pond
sitting in my backyard right now and I'm itching to get it going so
please inform me!

"Pondnovice" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hey guys, im new here. I have just begun the journey into the wonderful
world of ponds and I have some questions about pond maintenance etc.
First of all i'll tell you my situation: I have a 160 gallon
prefabricated pond that I set into the ground. I filled it with tap
water and got my pump going on the bottom.

I'd first suggest you get the pump off the bottom. If the output is somehow
diverted, you will empty your pond, and that's not so good for the fish.
Lift it up a bit on a crate, or planter.

The pond has great cover and
will never be in too much direct sunlight due to my fence and some tall
overhanging trees. My climate in southern california shoudnt pose any
risks, at least weather wise.
Ok thats all so far... now it would seem that the next step is
some rocks for the bottom, maybe river bed rocks?

Rocks on the bottom are a bit of a maintenance issue. The spaces in between
the rocks will collect a lot of detrious (sp?) which over time can become
toxic to the fish, and just plain smelly. If you want a few large rocks for
show, great, but if you plan to line the pond with small rock/pebbles, I
recommend you don't. You will live to regret it.

Then aquatic plants
and reeds, and finally fish. Thats all fine and dandy, but what now?
Should I just take some reeds from the nearby wetlands and drop them in
the pond where I want them to grow? Or is there some special plants I
should get?

Introducing local species can be good and bad. Local species will grow well,
but you may also bring with those plants disease and other undesirables. I
suggest you start your pond off with a few purchased plants from a reputable
seller, or by getting some from someone here for postage. Sorry, my pond is
iced over, so I have nothing to share right now. Check out
http://www.iheartmypond.com/Plants/.

Also, I have a "channel" that runs around the edge of the
pond that is apparently meant for reeds to grow in.. but I have
absolutely no idea how to grow reeds! Do any of you know how? My next
big question is how do I balance my pond critters with my plants? My
understanding is that the plants are crucial to the ponds ecosystem and
especially for the fishes survival.

Some people use mechanical filtration, others use plant filtration. Plants
are not critical, but they are very helpful in keeping the balance. I use
ONLY plant filtration, so plants are critical for my pond.

So how many/much plants do I need?
The type of critters I am looking to put in the pond aren't the
usual koi and goldfish etc. My whole vision is to populate it with some
of the local aquatic life I find around my southern california home.
This is smallmouth bass, catfish, mosquito fish and crawdads. Now I am
very aware of my limited space i.e. 160 gallons, but I am pretty
confident that if only a very few of these critters are put into the
pond it should not be too crowded.

Just remember...filtration. Manage your water, and your fish will manage
themselves. A small body of water, overcrowded will be very difficult to
manage. Check out http://www.iheartmypond.com/WaterQuality/Filtration/.

I myself have stumbled upon secluded
pools no bigger than my living room in my local mountains while fishing
only to find bass, sometime over 2 or 3 lbs living in them!

You don't get to see how many of them die, and how often that water is
filtered by nature.

Anyway, do
you think I should transplant these fish while they are young and
small? And what about the crawdads... would they even stand a chance in
there? I have seen them living in some pretty low creeks before,
something like a few inches of water. But I just dont know if a small
pond would allow them to roam enough, can crawdads live in small ponds?

I dunno about crawdads.

Also what about the chemicals in the tap water? I read a few things
talking about getting rid of them, whats the best way to do this?
Thats a lot of pond questions, but remember I have a blank pond
sitting in my backyard right now and I'm itching to get it going so
please inform me!

Many municipalities use chlorine or chloramines to treat the water. Both
chemicals are harmful to fish and should be removed with a proper water
treatment. Check out
http://www.iheartmypond.com/Treatmen...ineandAmmonia/.


--
BV
Webporgmaster of iheartmypond.com
http://www.iheartmypond.com
I'll be leaning on the bus stop post.

Benign Vanilla wrote:

Rocks on the bottom are a bit of a maintenance issue. The spaces in
between the rocks will collect a lot of detrious (sp?) which over time can

detritus. You're welcome :-)

become toxic to the fish, and just plain smelly. If you want a few large
rocks for show, great, but if you plan to line the pond with small
rock/pebbles, I recommend you don't. You will live to regret it.

Have we finally put this argument to rest? Last time I was around here it
was still as lively a topic as s**ting the pond.

Also, I have a "channel" that runs around the edge of the
pond that is apparently meant for reeds to grow in.. but I have
absolutely no idea how to grow reeds! Do any of you know how? My next

Get ground wet. Watch plants grow :-) Really, there's nothing to it.

The type of critters I am looking to put in the pond aren't the
usual koi and goldfish etc. My whole vision is to populate it with some
of the local aquatic life I find around my southern california home.
This is smallmouth bass, catfish, mosquito fish and crawdads. Now I am
very aware of my limited space i.e. 160 gallons, but I am pretty
confident that if only a very few of these critters are put into the
pond it should not be too crowded.
....
Anyway, do
you think I should transplant these fish while they are young and
small? And what about the crawdads... would they even stand a chance in
there? I have seen them living in some pretty low creeks before,
something like a few inches of water. But I just dont know if a small
pond would allow them to roam enough, can crawdads live in small ponds?

I dunno about crawdads.

Dunno, as in "dunno anything about them", or "dunno if it's a smart idea"?
I would think they stand as good, or better, chance of survival than
smallmouth bass and catfish. Be warned, it is likely _not_ legal to stock
native fish in your pond without appropriate licenses. Particularly
something like a smallmouth bass, which is native to the US but quite
possibly not native to your area. Here in Nova Scotia, they're an invasive
species.
--
derek

In a pond of 160 gallons we would usually recommend 8 goldfish max
with filtration going on the rec.ponds rule of thumb of 20 gallons per
goldfish. Some folks will tell you 40 gallons per goldfish. Bigger fish
would require 1000 gallons to start with and 100 gallons per fish as
a rule of thumb. (Experienced pond keepers can fiddle with these
recommendations but they are also very good at filtration.)

In nature smallmouth bass eat crayfish. They also eat other smaller
species of
fish and aquatic insect larvae. They can survive in water tempertures
up to 75
degrees. Any higher, for an extended length of time, and I think they
would get stressed.
Probably depends on where in CA you live. A lot of temperature
difference
between say, Palm Springs and San Francsico.

Usually the smaller the pond the harder it is to filter with plants
only.
Smaller aquatic ecosystems can get out of balance quicker than larger.
Larger bodies of water are more forgiving.

My recommendation for 160 gallons is to leave it a nature pond, stock
with
plants, a couple of minnows, some crawdads, invite anybody else to show
up and
enjoy.

Learn to run it, test the water with a test kit you can get at
any store that carries fish, see what the water temperature does over
the summer,
if you can keep it from turning green (the more plants the better),
the cleaning of the rocks if you decide to keep them and
then do what we all do. Dig more ponds! Bigger, deeper, more elaborate.
Take
over the yard, give up mowing... ;-)

kathy

Derek wrote Have we finally put this argument to rest?

Are you kidding? ;-)

For the Original Poster -
If you google for 'rocks in the pond' and 'rec.ponds' you will
get 8,270 responses. Let's say we've had heated discussions
about this ; -)

I have a 3,000 gallon pond. Every spring if I can round
up the husband and teenagers I should clean out the pond.
There will be about an inch of muck on the bottom. Two inches
if it has been two years, three inches... you get the picture.

The teenagers get in there with shovels and shovel the muck
into a wheel barrow and off it goes to fertilize the trees. You
can imagine trying to get the stuff out if the bottom was covered
in rocks.

Now some ponders, smarter and wiser than us, put in skimmers to
keep most of the stuff from settling to the bottom, they cover their
ponds with nets during the fall and winter to keep the leaves out,
they put in bottom drains,
they use shop vacs to clean the bottom of the pond. All this makes
it a whole lot easier to clean the pond.

Ponds that have been rocked are usually cleaned with a power
washer, the mucky water pumped out, powered washed, pumped
out, repeat. Some are cleaned with shop vacs.

Most of these ponds are 800, 1000 gallons or bigger. A small pond
of 160 gallons *might* be doable. Might be. We have ponders with
veggie filters, a seperate plant filled container that they use for
filtering
that have tried rocks in the bottom. They usually don't last the first
cleaning.


kathy

"kathy" wrote:

Now some ponders, smarter and wiser than us, put in skimmers to
keep most of the stuff from settling to the bottom,

Also, snails do a great job. I started with 6 trap door snails and now
after one season have thousands. They can't wait for dead stuff to eat.
--
Pardon my spam deterrent; send email to
18,000 gallon (17'x 47'x 2-4') lily pond garden in Zone 6
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA

snip

I dunno about crawdads.
===
===Dunno, as in "dunno anything about them", or "dunno if it's a smart idea"?
===I would think they stand as good, or better, chance of survival than
===smallmouth bass and catfish. Be warned, it is likely _not_ legal to stock
===native fish in your pond without appropriate licenses. Particularly
===something like a smallmouth bass, which is native to the US but quite
===possibly not native to your area. Here in Nova Scotia, they're an invasive
===species.


Yep stating so called facts without knowing where this fellow lives
and the laws and regs that pertain, but it is likely illegal is a
great answer.

TAKE a clue Derek, he is not in any of the north country areas, he is
in california, and its quite legal, so why would he be concerned about
Canada and its regulations......You do not know the answers without
being a smart ass to the fella but just have to post to stay on your
soap box, but that certaianly does not help him now does it?

Crawdads will soon become food for the normal run of native fishes, so
they will not last long in a pond with any bass..........bass do well
as do bream, and its perfectly legal in most all counties of
california, some have rules that state otherwise, but you can buy em
all day long at hatcheries for stocking in private ponds....

Native fish make a lot of mess, but no more than koi do, not quite a
pretty to see since you usually view it from the top, but anonetheless
game type species are nice if you can get a good
sideview.........especially some of the bream species. Catfish will
keep the water stirred up, constantly. You will have to place bream
first, give them time to grow and then stock bass fingerlings, with
catfish fingerlings being last...........I say stock but from thew
sounds of your pond your only looking for a few native species, so you
may be all right to get fish of approx size at the same time......But
eventually that catfish or bass is gonna eat the bream. Bass do not do
as well with pelleted feed as catfish and bream do, but they will eat
it, but don;t look at any spectacular growth rates unless you go with
live food for the bass............

Native fish do not tear up planats as bad as koi and gold fish
do........actually they treat the plants fine, as most are feeders of
live food and not vegetarians. To a native type fish as bass and bream
plants are cover, not food like a koi views it.

Call your local county extension agent, or the fisheries division of
your local university and they have a wealth of info that they will
send you for free in regards to what your wanting to do........your
certainly not the first., and its pretty common to do, and they have
papers already printed up with all the data, and the correct data and
info for your county / state, not biased oipinnions like you get in
this forum, from folks just having the dire need to see their name in
print!


REMEMBER: "This is worth repeating for benefit of al newbies!
Jo Ann asked Dr. Sooooooooooooooooolow to remind people that while she has retired from selling GF (and sold
the business to Ken Fischer http://dandyorandas.com/) she has NOT retired from
helping people with sick GF and koi FOR FREE. 251-649-4790 phoning is best for
diagnosis. but, can try email put "help sick fish" in subject. Get your fish at Dandy Orandas
Dandy Orandas Dandy Orandas........you guys got that DANDY ORANDAS

Roy wrote:

TAKE a clue Derek, he is not in any of the north country areas, he is
in california, and its quite legal, so why would he be concerned about
Canada and its regulations......You do not know the answers without
being a smart ass to the fella but just have to post to stay on your
soap box, but that certaianly does not help him now does it?

Don't be such an annoying litte child. It's not an issue of Canadian
regulations, it's an issue of California ones. In most American states
_and_ Canadian provinces, it is illegal to move native fish from one body
of water to another EVEN if they're native. So it is important to point
out that one could get into trouble for it. If the OP doesn't care about
the law, I'm not concerned, but people should at least know where they
stand. I take it, that despite your obvious immaturity, you are actually
licensed to practice law in California, right? Surely you wouldn't just
impersonate a lawyer and say "its quite legal" (btw, that's a contraction,
there should be an apostrophe).

Native fish do not tear up planats as bad as koi and gold fish
do........actually they treat the plants fine, as most are feeders of
live food and not vegetarians. To a native type fish as bass and bream
plants are cover, not food like a koi views it.

Talk about soapboxes. "Native fish" is such a gross-overgeneralization.
Some will be worse, some better. I've never once had a goldfish tear up a
plant.

Call your local county extension agent, or the fisheries division of
your local university and they have a wealth of info that they will
send you for free in regards to what your wanting to do.

Finally a bit of sense.

--
derek

"Derek Broughton" wrote in message
...
Benign Vanilla wrote:

Rocks on the bottom are a bit of a maintenance issue. The spaces in
between the rocks will collect a lot of detrious (sp?) which over time
can

detritus. You're welcome :-)

Danka.

become toxic to the fish, and just plain smelly. If you want a few large
rocks for show, great, but if you plan to line the pond with small
rock/pebbles, I recommend you don't. You will live to regret it.

Have we finally put this argument to rest? Last time I was around here it
was still as lively a topic as s**ting the pond.

I do not subscribe to the "the gunk on the pond bottom will kill your fish
if they even look at it" idea. But I also don't like a rock lined bottom. I
used small rocks in my VF to help the plant baskets sit level by nestling
them into the rocks. Cleanup the following year was a pain in the arse.

Also, I have a "channel" that runs around the edge of the
pond that is apparently meant for reeds to grow in.. but I have
absolutely no idea how to grow reeds! Do any of you know how? My next

Get ground wet. Watch plants grow :-) Really, there's nothing to it.

Here, here.

The type of critters I am looking to put in the pond aren't the
usual koi and goldfish etc. My whole vision is to populate it with some
of the local aquatic life I find around my southern california home.
This is smallmouth bass, catfish, mosquito fish and crawdads. Now I am
very aware of my limited space i.e. 160 gallons, but I am pretty
confident that if only a very few of these critters are put into the
pond it should not be too crowded.
...
Anyway, do
you think I should transplant these fish while they are young and
small? And what about the crawdads... would they even stand a chance in
there? I have seen them living in some pretty low creeks before,
something like a few inches of water. But I just dont know if a small
pond would allow them to roam enough, can crawdads live in small ponds?

I dunno about crawdads.

Dunno, as in "dunno anything about them", or "dunno if it's a smart idea"?
I would think they stand as good, or better, chance of survival than
smallmouth bass and catfish. Be warned, it is likely _not_ legal to stock
native fish in your pond without appropriate licenses. Particularly
something like a smallmouth bass, which is native to the US but quite
possibly not native to your area. Here in Nova Scotia, they're an
invasive
species.

I've read the crawdads, can be harmful to fish. Other then that, I dunno
nuttin' about no crawdads.


--
BV
Webporgmaster of iheartmypond.com
http://www.iheartmypond.com
I'll be leaning on the bus stop post.

"Roy" wrote in message
...
snip

I dunno about crawdads.
===
===Dunno, as in "dunno anything about them", or "dunno if it's a smart
idea"?
===I would think they stand as good, or better, chance of survival than
===smallmouth bass and catfish. Be warned, it is likely _not_ legal to
stock
===native fish in your pond without appropriate licenses. Particularly
===something like a smallmouth bass, which is native to the US but
quite
===possibly not native to your area. Here in Nova Scotia, they're an
invasive
===species.


Yep stating so called facts without knowing where this fellow lives
and the laws and regs that pertain, but it is likely illegal is a
great answer.

TAKE a clue Derek, he is not in any of the north country areas, he is
in california, and its quite legal, so why would he be concerned about
Canada and its regulations......You do not know the answers without
being a smart ass to the fella but just have to post to stay on your
soap box, but that certaianly does not help him now does it?

Roy, re-read the post. He didn't post it as fact. He used an anecdote and
suggested the OP determine if the species he is planning to stock is legal.
There is nothing wrong with recommending a newb check out local laws and
restrictions before bringing in "local" species. Consider the snake head in
MD, and the damage it has done.

snip
Native fish do not tear up planats as bad as koi and gold fish
do........actually they treat the plants fine, as most are feeders of
live food and not vegetarians. To a native type fish as bass and bream
plants are cover, not food like a koi views it.

Now look who is giving advice...native fish don't eat plants? How can you
make such a distinct statement with mentioning the variety or species of
fish. Some expert you are.

Call your local county extension agent, or the fisheries division of
your local university and they have a wealth of info that they will
send you for free in regards to what your wanting to do........your
certainly not the first., and its pretty common to do, and they have
papers already printed up with all the data, and the correct data and
info for your county / state, not biased oipinnions like you get in
this forum, from folks just having the dire need to see their name in
print!

Sorry Roy, we have a local poster that hates in when people suggest that
what they may be doing needs to be verified with local sources, you better
not make such suggestions or you'll get an oral beating from Ro...oh forget
it.

REMEMBER: "This is worth repeating for benefit of al newbies!
Jo Ann asked Dr. Sooooooooooooooooolow to remind people that while she has
retired from selling GF (and sold
the business to Ken Fischer http://dandyorandas.com/) she has NOT retired
from
helping people with sick GF and koi FOR FREE. 251-649-4790 phoning is
best for
diagnosis. but, can try email put "help sick fish" in subject. Get your
fish at Dandy Orandas
Dandy Orandas Dandy Orandas........you guys got that DANDY ORANDAS